LWSD is being built for the Navy. It's going to have the same problems that the YAL-1 had with range though. That's a fairly inherent problem with any
laser.

It will have less problems with a power supply as it will be less constrained by weight and size. As a replacement to CIWS it could work well.
Admittedly, the range problems are limiting. There was a plan at one time to use the laser to ionize the air and send a plasma pulse along the track.
As I remember, this was also complicated by atmospheric conditions.
I have concluded that, based on public knowledge, boost phase intercepts seem unlikely at this time.

It's dead. They scrapped the aircraft a few years ago. They sent the aircraft to the Boneyard after they found some fairly serious problems with the
idea, then when they were getting it ready for storage they found major contamination from the laser in the airframe.

They shot down a satellite in the 80s with a missile launched from an F-15. That's relatively easy. They're in a predictable orbit, on a non-moving
path. They're not maneuvering or throwing out decoys. An ICBM is much much harder. It's a fraction of the size, moving faster, has decoys, and can
move to avoid attempts to shoot it down.

Yes. The newer missiles, none operational and most not flown yet, are aiming for a terminal velocity slightly higher than the speed of a satellite in
orbit. It drastically reduces engagement time. Right now the RS-28 is one of the fastest missiles flying, at just under 16,000 mph.

Again, they shot down a satellite many years before that. Also, the system they used to shoot that satellite down isn't designed to stop an ICBM. A
satellite doesn't maneuver or use decoys, again.

It's not a diminishing of capabilities. It's a case of a system that wasn't designed to do something being claimed it can.

Regional Defense – Aegis BMD Engagement Capability Defeats short- to intermediate-range, unitary and separating, midcourse-phase, ballistic missile threats with the Standard Missile-3 (SM-3), as
well as short-range ballistic missiles in the terminal phase with the SM-2.
Flight tests are conducted by Fleet warships. Each test increases the operational realism and complexity of targets and scenarios and is witnessed by
Navy and Defense Department testing evaluators.
Homeland Defense – Aegis BMD Long Range Surveillance and Track Aegis BMD ships on Ballistic Missile Defense patrol, detect and track ballistic missiles of all ranges — including Intercontinental Ballistic
Missiles and report track data to the missile defense system. This capability shares tracking data to cue other missile defense sensors and provides
fire control data to Ground-based Midcourse Defense interceptors located at Fort Greely, Alaska and Vandenberg Air Force Base, California and
other elements of the BMDS including land-based firing units (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, Patriot) and other Navy BMD ships.

"The Missile Defence Agency demonstrated the potential use of directed energy to defend against ballistic missiles when the Airborne Laser Test-bed
(ALTB) successfully destroyed a boosting ballistic missile," the agency said.

The project has been in the works for a few years now, and has met with significant success in preliminary trials. In 2012, it was reported that a
CHAMP mission in Utah managed to hit and subsequently disable seven separate targets in one mission, demonstrating its accuracy and precision.

CHAMP will have its own problems to overcome. For one, being put into a missile that can survive long enough to get to the target area. Another is
that, like EMP weapons it's going to have problems overcoming hardened targets like ICBM C2 systems.

Aegis doesn't "turn ICBMs into trash". The guidance allows the GBI a better chance at hitting but doesn't guarantee anything.

How is a weapon designed to target electrical grids from a drone going to take down an inbound ICBM?

An ICBM travels at about 6-7 km per second. I don't know of a single UAV that can even begin to touch that. Unless green flash is an anti ICBM
device...

The current NMD system we have is the GMD (Ground based midcourse defense). That system uses a kinetic projectile hurled into the path of an ICBM.

The Russian system, for example, the A-135 still uses a nuclear device to disable an inbound nuclear ICBM. Aegis and Aegish Ashore use blast
fragmentation warheads on the tips of Raytheon SM-3 interceptors. That's a far cry from a laser based interception system. Even further from an EMP
on a drone.

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